The copending patent application captioned above describes a graphical user interface for a machine having a screen display. A significant feature of the interface is that it provides the means for hand drawn entry of on-screen objects which may be associated with functions, files, connections, and other objects or actions accessible by the system to carry out the user's desired purpose, whatever it may be. A fundamental aspect of this interface is the ability to carry out commands and actions in real time corresponding to the hand drawn inputs as they are applied to any on-screen object, including (but not limited to) objects representing files (text, data, sound, video, graphics, photos, and the like), functional devices (audio processing, video processing, graphic and photo processing, text editing, data processing, internet communications, test equipment, medical devices, and the like), and interconnecting arrows and lines that link these files and functional devices in on-screen arrangements that are drawn by the user to accomplish desired tasks. The prior related applications also introduce arrow logics as a method for inputting transactions involving objects displayed onscreen through the use of arrows and lines drawn between such objects.
It is noted that approximately 26% of the population of the U.S. and approximately 5% of the world population (including the U.S. figure) own a PC today. These statistics show that although current times are widely known as the computer age, ownership and, to a significant extent, the use of computers is the exception rather than the rule, in much of the world, even the developed “first” world.
One possible reason for the reluctance of some to embrace the PC is a difficulty for them to feel comfortable or familiar with many of the PC's required operations. In other words, the PC requires a certain learning process associated with its operating system (“OS”) and third party software that run on this OS. The operation of a given OS is determined by the manufacturer of the OS and, like it or not, users must comply with the means, methods, and rules which the OS requires to be followed, even if this operation is not intuitive for the users.
This same model applies to virtually every computer software program that runs on a PC, from graphics and video software to text software to business software. Each of these software programs carries with it an instruction manual that inexorably increases in size and complexity with each new software update.
Pull Down Menus
Typically, to operate a computer, i.e., a PC or Mac or its equivalent (“PC”), pull down menus, task bars, icons, and the like are provided by the software application and required to be used. Pull down menus have proven to be a deterrent to a myriad of would-be computer users. Pull down menus started out nearly two decades ago as simple lists of functions. But today, as more and more functionality has been added to computers, pull down menus have become complex worlds unto themselves. In fact, many a user has thrown up his hands in frustration because a certain software program, with which these users had developed great proficiency and familiarity, can no longer be easily operated, because the pull down menus were changed in a new software update. Such changes could include eliminating familiar items, new locations of menus entries, new categories where controls, features, and tools are grouped in a new way, the changing of names of menu items, etc. To many users this phenomenon creates difficulty because “nothing is familiar anymore”. Therefore the very familiarity that supported their proficiency is removed, all in the name of progress called a software update.
The Look of a Software Screen
Another important factor in maintaining a user's mastery and familiarity of certain OS or other software programs is the “look” of the screen when operating this software. The “look” can be more than an appearance of graphics. This “look” can affect in a greater or lesser degree the very operation of the software itself. Things as simple as font changes (new font sizes, styles, etc.) or different graphic layout schemes, or in some cases, changes in color schemes can all have negative affects on both the ability of a new user to adapt to or develop a proficiency in any given software or the ability of experienced users of certain software to continue their proficiency beyond and into one new software update after another, where the very “look” that was relied upon as a familiar and efficient environment is changed time and again in software updates.
Thus there are two general issues cited here affecting users of software:
1) New users may not embrace, adapt to, or accept a certain software or OS because its “look and feel” and its operation is not easily understood or assimilated by them.
2) Existing users (including experienced users) may find their proficiency so compromised by changes in the software from one update to another that their ability to “keep up” is compromised and the usefulness to them of certain software becomes diminished.